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Briallan
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re: LOTRO is 5th most popular subscription MMO?

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I am somewhat ashamed to say that I now subscribe to the MMORPG.com newsletter (please don't tell my parents!) -- in the latest edition, I ran across an article on popular subscription-based MMOs, and was surprised to find that LOTRO was pretty high on the list -- I had sort of been under the impression that, as an older game that mostly appealed to people who were into Tolkien lore, LOTRO was not very popular in relation to other MMOs. Anyway the article makes an interesting read .. maybe I will post this on the coursera forums as well.

You would think that with all that money coming in, they could at least add a couple more musical instruments for us to play ... hmpf.



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Many of us believe that a lot of resources are being diverted to Infinite Crisis.

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I heard a terrible rumour that LOTRO has been basically placed in maintenance mode and WB laid off a bunch of Turbine employees. I'm hoping there's no truth to that.



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karakedi
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There were indeed layoffs last spring; the LotRO staff was cut fairly deeply.  However, the game is definitely not in maintenance mode; in fact a new update (14) went live last Monday, and it has been very well received.  They have also talked of a wide variety of plans for the future, so I think we'll have a growing Middle-earth for some time to come.  It may not grow as fast as it used to, and some corners may be cut for the sake of economy, but it's definitely not in maintenance mode.

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Briallan wrote:

You would think that with all that money coming in, they could at least add a couple more musical instruments for us to play ... hmpf.

 

To be fair, I suspect they want to make sure that what is available is somewhat believable for something that would be pre... 15th century, I think... My poor memory doesn't remember if Tolkien's word choice for Lord of the Rings was nothing that came into being post 15th or 18th century. It was one of those, I think.



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Briallan
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IIRC, one of the reasons Frodo leaves for the West at the end of the trilogy is the industrialization of the Shire, so I *think* the Tolkien era is toward the end of the range you mention, at which point such instruments as violins and piano-type instruments would be available.

Actually, as a heavy user of the LOTRO music system, I tend to gripe a lot about the fact the music system doesn't get more than maintenance support -- and in fact, it was never really a design priority of Turbine, but was a side project by a developer who apparently is no longer on the team. So, I kind of meant that as a joke, as Turbine has said clearly that they won't be adding more instruments. :)



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Temporal setting:

The time-frame of Middle-earth is somewhat anachronistic.  The Shire is set technologically sometime post-Renaissance, possibly 18th century.  However, the rest of western Middle-earth appears to use pre-Renaissance technology, anywhere from something like 7th century Europe in, for example Dunland, up to something rather close to Renaissance technology in urban Gondor. 

Why Frodo went West:

To the best of my knowledge Frodo left for the West because he was physically, mentally, and spiritually spent by the rigors of his quest.  He could not savor life in the Shire he had saved, so he left in search of healing in Valinor.  The industrialization of the Shire was temporary; I believe it was largely restored to its previous state (with improvements from Galadriel's gift to Sam) before Frodo departed.

Albertine_Courserrim
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I'm surprised that The Shire uses post-Renaissance tech. We know from research that one of the reasons Tolkien created Middle Earth was as a mythical history for England, similar to that of Norse mythology. So I would have expected the technology to be closer to Dark Ages if not earlier.

But that said, we know he made some mistakes, such as some of the artefacts he created - I saw a talk once by Dr Dimitra Fimi where she showed an image of a page of aged-up manuscript. It was supposed to look like an Elvish document, but Tolkien had accidentally written it in Elvish, but using English phrasing and grammar.

Which things in the Shire make it seem closer to the Renaissance to you?



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karakedi
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Some relevant quotes, with respect to the technological and cultural period reflected in the Shire:

The Hobbit

No going upstairs for the hobbit: bedrooms, bathrooms, cellars, pantries (lots of these), wardrobes (he had whole rooms devoted to clothes), kitchens, dining-rooms, all were on the same floor, and indeed on the same passage. [Rural folk, even prosperous ones, would not be likely to have so many rooms of different kinds, especially bathrooms, until after the Renaissance.]

Then he took out his morning letters, and begin to read, pretending to take no more notice of the old man. He had decided that he was not quite his sort, and wanted him to go away. [Regular post and widespread (though not universal) literacy are characteristic more of Jane Austen's world than of preceding eras.]

But please come to tea - any time you like! Why not tomorrow? Come tomorrow! Good-bye! [Both the beverage and the custom of a meal built around it were common probably no sooner than the Enlightenment period.]

He was blowing the most enormous smoke-rings, and wherever he told one to go, it went-up the chimney, or behind the clock on the mantelpiece, or under the table, or round and round the ceiling; but wherever it went it was not quick enough to escape Gandalf. [Household clocks are largely found in 17th-18th-19th century England and not much before that.]

LOTR

It was in these early days, doubtless, that the Hobbits learned their letters and began to write after the manner of the Dúnedain, who had in their turn long before learned the art from the Elves. [Widespread literacy was definitely not to be found in medieval or Renaissance farming areas.]

For ADELARD TOOK, for his VERY OWN, from Bilbo, on an umbrella. Adelard had carried off many unlabelled ones. [An umbrella is also something characteristic of post-Renaissance times. In earlier times, it's possible that wealthy women used parasols to protect their complexions, but an umbrella as a protection against rain isn't something I've run across in my reading of the earlier times.]

 

The overall prosperity of the Shire and Bree is much more characteristic of the England of the 18th and 19th centuries than of the feudal period or that immediately following it.

 

 



Last edited by karakedi on Sun Jul 27, 2014 8:36 am; edited 1 time in total
Jestro/Pinestro/knifesedge
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There is a small but very vocal group of people that preach the end of Lotro (and have done so since the launch of F2P.)

On the subject of instruments, Turbine have a history of saying one thing and doing another. The Pigborn, for instance is a very recently added instrument. There is a very large subgroup of music users in Lotro that continue to subscribe so there may be changes to the system yet.



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Albertine_Courserrim
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@Karakedi:

God I feel a bit silly that I never even noticed all that stuff! :)

I'm going to be unconsciously looking out for temporal inconsistencies like this when I'm reading other epic fantasies in future now.



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Ice Weasel
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I think there might be an explanation for the temporal inconsistencies. 



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Albertine_Courserrim
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*votes for next companion to be a hobbit*



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